This claim is not from an article or social media post, but rather it is a claim that I have declared. I have been wondering about this certain profile for a long time and thought that I was onto something. Through my school, I would receive emails from Alana Rose and Carla Martin. Both claimed to be “Program Advisor” for The ASU Global Career Accelerator. I was not wary of these emails until my boyfriend who is enrolled at University of Idaho told me the name looked familiar. We checked his emails too and alas, the same two Program Directors were plaguing his emails as well announcing the same opportunities. Immediately I assumed they were AI.
Here is a screen shot of my latest email from Alana and his. Both have the same subject.
After reading the Verification Handbook and seeing how researchers investigate profiles and learning about bots, I wanted to try it out.
To start my investigation I typed Alana Rose into google. This is what unfortunately popped up …
Not looking good but then I narrowed the search to : “Alana Rose Global Career Accelerator ASU.” And I seemingly got some answers.
I found her LinkedIn page which was also seemingly legit. I reverse image searched her profile and only got the same pictures. I found an instagram post from a company she used to work for (said so in her LinkedIn profile). Was a bit sketchy because it was the last post on this instagram account from 2023 and there were 50 likes and no comments in an account with just over 1,100 followers. Her in-link instagram profile gave an error page and her Twitter account had the same profile picture. She also solely seemed to post about getting votes for her daughter’s baby of the year campaign. The website RocketReach also provided the same information as well as a list of partial phone numbers (which I needed to pay to obtain). This was also a bit fishy because in one of her emails to my boyfriend’s school account she listed a number that was a local number, yet not one listed on the Rocket Reach website.
Another promising source I found featuring Alana Rose was a podcast from The Change Leader Inc. She was a guest onThe Change Higher Ed Podcast with Dr. Drumm McNaughton.
Alana Rose now works for Podium Education which is listed on the ASU website on the Global Career Accelerator. Likewise, ASU’s Noah Rost Executive Director of Global Education is listed on the Podium Education website.
Another piece of evidence that does not support my claim is the fact that all of the emails sent to me were random. There wasn’t a pattern with times or dates that made her seem like a bot. The messages seem automated because they only differ in wording slightly. I still wouldn’t be surprised if Alana was a cyborg, only half controlling the email account.
I had not researched as far with Carla Martin, but she also works for Podium Education, the information of which I found on her LinkedIn.
It is important to validate claims to stop the spread of misinformation. The truth is always an important thing to investigate. And it so happens that a claim that you think is true may turn out to be false.
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